When I look back at memories of my childhood, my family is almost always involved. I grew up in what I like to think is one of the greatest extended families of all time. My grandparents are the kind that going to their house is more exciting than the actual holiday you’re going there for itself. The grandparents whose hugs and kisses make you feel all of the good things and that believe in you and your dreams and ambitions from when you were five and told them that you were going to jump off the diving board for the first time, all the way up to now and discussing my future career plans while in college. My cousins are the actual coolest human beings I know, and each and every single one of them brings me joy for so many different reasons. My aunts and uncles are all so supportive of one another and I have never seen more giving and selfless people when it comes to family. I honestly like to think that they are my very own angels God sent me to kind of sort out my priorities in life and show me how it is supposed to be done and what I should value in my life.

My favorite memory of all this gang of my rockstar human bean relatives that still follows us around today, is the post-party coffee. From as young as I can remember, I always recall the adults of the family getting just as excited for my grandma brewing coffee around 2pm as the kids were about my grandpa being in charge of the whipped cream when it came to desserts. All the kids usually scattered off to play after all the major holiday celebrations had ceased, and the parents all gathered around the kitchen table drinking coffee and talking for hours. Sometimes it turned into card games, other times into watching videos or reading articles people have discovered and wanted to share, but amidst all of that fun is always the smell of coffee beans and the love you can almost grasp in your hands.

Being the oldest girl cousin and the second oldest cousin with an 8 year age gap between the oldest (hey Zach, yes you’ll always hold coolest oldest cousin status) and being the oldest child of my family, I was pretty quick to want to grow up and be a part of this environment. There was something about the way that it seemed like the dining room table could squeeze an endless amount of chairs around it and yours would always find a spot if you had a joke to share or ears to listen. Although I may have started out bringing my slice of cheesecake instead of coffee, I’ve grown into the habit of drinking it and absorbing all the good stuff (caffeine AND family vibes) with the rest of them.

I fell so in love with this concept of the vibes and good energy that I received from this experience that I wanted to somehow capture it and bring it with my everywhere I go. I’ve never actually told anyone that this is like my all time favorite experience, so if any of those super exclusive members of that dining table coffee club are reading this: I think you’re all so so so cool. big time. Anyways, so my mission to find this kind of good soul food love began, and so did my love affair with coffee itself.

I vividly remember the first time I drank coffee (Starb’s frappes don’t count as much as my 14 year old self would love to claim that they do!) I was a second semester freshman in high school and my pal Rachel (who you still hear a lot about around here, who lives two floors up from me, and who is my physical embodiment of a coffee bean and who you will continue to hear a lot about even in this post…so yeah, she’s pretty important people. coffee VIP if you will.) and I were trying out for our school’s dance team that morning. We had spent the entire night before practicing our routines and improv sections and I wanna say got to sleep a lot later than we should have, gossiping about who we thought would make it, all mixed in with the occasional “but it’s totally okay and totally fine if we get cut” nervous statements. (spoiler: we both made it and somehow survived a few years together) My mom made both of us a cup with our breakfast that morning and even though I am pretty positive it was doused with a hecka lot of creamer, it was still coffee. It was love at first sip. But really, driving to the tryouts with her that morning, nervous thoughts in our minds and java in our bellies, I kinda had my first glimpse at that feeling I had been wanting so badly to create for myself of contentment with coffee.

It is no surprise to any of you who have been reading with me for awhile, following any of my social media accounts, or honestly have met me for more than five minutes…that I LOVE coffee now today. I will never skip out on a coffee date at new shop, order it with my breakfast wherever I am, or simply make it for myself at home. I got a french press for Christmas from my grandma this year, and was over the actual moon to be in charge of making some of the coffee for the post holiday chat with all of the coolest people I know. Sure I love the taste of coffee, I love the kick it gives me in the morning, I honestly even am appreciative of the final step of digestion it prompts (how’s that for your visual imagery of the day), but what really does coffee mean to me? Or better yet, why the heck am I even writing this?????? An actual entire post dedicated to coffee….

Waking up in the morning, before the rest of the world minus a few literal feathery early-birds, when the sky is still that magical kind of purple that you would never want to be in a crayon box because it is way to special to use in any sort of circumstance minus this. Listening to coffee brew and it being the only sound you hear minus your internal thoughts and your actual heartbeat. That small period of time where you realize, wow, this is life. I’m living it. The first contact with your mug where your hands are instantly heated and it sends the warmth down your entire body and you’re reminded that you’ve got an entire lifetime ahead of you but all you want to do is live in this exact moment. But then you take your first sip and realize you’ve got places to be and things to do and people to see and guess what? The only person meant to do all the things that you have in store: you.

Coffee has led me through every emotion in my life and then some. I have made some of my biggest realizations over coffee in the mornings with myself and God, and have had some of the best conversations over coffee with people I love dearly. Rachel, who I mentioned earlier, is probably an even bigger coffee addict than I am, and the amount of quick coffee runs we make is probably excessive, but I wouldn’t trade them for the world. The amount of giggles and serenades over silly songs we sing on the quick drive to our off campus Starbucks are never enough, the late night we for sure shouldn’t be drinking caffeine at this hour java break runs where you are so in love with yourself and life that you order homemade chocolate whipped cream on top are what I live for, and the quiet drives where she even sometimes knows to ask if I am okay because I am being a little quieter than usual as she pays for my latte because she could sense I needed to get out and coffee is our excuse have gotten me through some of the roughest days.

You need these people in your life, I need these people in my life! I am such an independent person that sometimes asking people for help or telling them the problems or even good things going on in my life is such a hard barrier to break, but there is something about coffee that ever since I was younger and watching my family love each other no matter what the topic of conversation over it, that can put my own selfish independent needs aside and realize that everyone needs coffee. Everyone needs their moments to realize who they are and that asking for help is brave and that sometimes you have to take an entire hour with simply you and coffee and just realize what you want from yourself for that day!!!!!! Not your entire future, not the week, not the semester, just that day. How big are you going to love? Who are you going to remind that they mean the world to you? What are you going to do to better yourself? What can you do to make someone smile today? Those questions. The simple, every day questions that we often forget to ask ourselves and therefore forget to accomplish. We can be so so focused on the bigger picture of getting our life together that we can forget to just look at the 24 hours in front of us and ask ourselves what we wanna do with it! Don’t forget to take your dwelling time to do this. Now disclaimer: I don’t care if you like coffee or not. Drink some gosh darn tea if that’s more your style of meditating figure your life out love your people and take on the world kind of beverage. Quite honestly, I’ll still take my hazelnut lattes.

But what I do ask of you to do, is find this time where you can spend with the people that mean the most to you and talk about the stuff you wanna talk about. Talk about the stuff you wanna get so excited and scream about, I don’t care if it is a new revelation you have made or the fact that you got an A on your test or the fact that Starbucks has a new drink out. Talk about it. Talk about the stuff you wanna cry about, talk about the stuff that makes you angry at the world. That stuff needs to be talked about. But don’t forget that you can’t stay talking about that forever. You still need to hop back to the topics on how to fix it, or things that are good in the world as well. EVERY situation has a silver lining, even if it takes years of hard work and a lot of perspective change to figure that out.

Coffee has helped me discover who I am. Coffee dates and runs help me validate my life and my choices I make. Coffee has helped me to realize that I need other people and that they need me. Coffee has made me realize I am a good friend, a good lover, a good sister, a good daughter, a good niece, a good student, a good Ally. But it has also made me realize that there is room for improvement in all of those areas, and that taking time to understand what I can do to improve is essential to improving. Coffee has taught me never to give up on things that mean a lot to me. Coffee has taught me that times may be tough, decisions may be hard, but if you believe in something enough, and work for it with your best intentions at heart, it will work out just how it is supposed to. Coffee has taught me how to open up to people and to understand the power of asking about someone’s day and genuinely wanting a reply of what they ate for lunch or what their hardest class was or something that made them smile. Coffee has taught me to love.

If there is one thing I am truly hopeful for in life, it is that one day when I have a family of my own, we can have post party coffee. I want nothing more than a big dining room table with everyone I love, loving each other. It is honestly the best experience in the world, to see these people you care so much about just being themselves and everyone else appreciating them for exactly that. That is how I want to live my every day life. I want to live the rest of my life drinking coffee.

Thanks for reading about something so important to me, I hope you can take away at least one lil bean of knowledge and love.

Until next time, xoxo, Ally

 

This is me admitting I have been putting off writing this post for a few days now. My past two years of NYE posts are my two top viewed posts, and two of the posts I am most proud of quite frankly. (2014) + (2015) …In both posts I slightly mention how I am not the biggest supporter of “new year’s resolutions” solely because I don’t think we should aim for the “new year new me” mentality of changing ourselves, but rather look on improving aspects of our lives and daily actions without changing who we are. I also don’t think that waiting for a special day to start acting upon having better intentions for yourself is something worth waiting for; if you have a good intention…why wait???? SO  yeah, those posts were full with the good stuff and I was all full of wisdom. However this past year I have grown so much and learned so many things and my brain is fuzzy of what to spill to you all. Anyways, while I am typing this, we are about 21 hours into 2017 and while I was reflecting over the past year and on what I wanted to make this post about, I was constantly drawn to the areas of the past year that weren’t the best and realized one thing that constantly was a key factor in these areas: myself.

Now I know, I just said I am not a supporter of changing who you are, I am a firm believer that everyone is who they are for a good reason and God made them with personality quirks and all for very specific purposes in this universe, so I promise what I have to say isn’t about changing who you are. (trust me, this is coming from someone who in the past year has learned that she is  t e r r i f i e d  of change, so I wouldn’t throw that at ya.)

A whole bunch of crazy cool and big things happened in my life in 2016! I graduated high school! I moved to Kansas! I started college! I met new friends! I missed old ones! I joined a sorority! I doubted myself in so many areas I thought I was confident in! I found new things I am super great at because I went out on a limb! As I said, I am not super fond of change. I am an oldest child messily “Type A” who is used to pretty much having the things in her life under her own control. So as exciting and big as all of the change in my life was, it is pretty safe to say I am a lot bigger fan of the period of time a few months AFTER the big changes. Needless to say, 2016 definitely had some trying moments for myself, but nothing that didn’t end up working out for the better. As I mentioned, in the end, everyone is who they are and everything happens how it does for a reason (thanks God!!!!!)

Back to what I was saying about finding myself in the midst of all of the times of the past year weren’t the best. Every time when I was feeling lost, when I was feeling scared, when I was feeling like I wasn’t performing to my full potential or that I wasn’t being the best friend/sister/daughter that I could be: all tied back to times where I wasn’t taking care of myself. Now I am speaking from personal experience, but I am positive that we have all had times similar to this in our lives. It is not in any way a bad thing. For most of the time, we forget to care for ourselves when we are too busy caring about others. For example, instead of trying to commit time to each of my friends, I would get so worried that each of my friends was feeling loved or was doing okay that I would get so caught up in them that I forgot one of my favorite focuses: you can’t fill others’ cups when your own has yet to be filled. The same concept goes for so many different aspects of life and can even be applied to things like my academics. When I zoom out and stress too much about the bigger picture and how much work has to eventually be done (which I admit to doing far too often) instead of taking my classes one at a time and doing each assignment to the best of my ability as they come…I end up giving less attention to my studies than I should. Heck! It can even be applied to simple things like when we worry too much about eating healthy, staying in shape, being in a good mental state; we can freak ourselves out about how little progress we are making! However if we just take each step at a time: get a decent amount of sleep each night, carry around a water bottle and stay hydrated, take some extra time to walk to your classes, that huge daunting task of “healthy” seems so much simpler.

So more simply put: learn how to love yourself in order to love others. be selfish in the most selfless way. Quite honestly in order to be fully selfLESS, one must learn to be selfish. There is nothing more beautiful than someone who goes out of their way to make other’s lives better, but make sure to include yourself in that. Do you find yourself asking others how they are often? If they’re okay/happy? How their day is? ASK YOURSELF! It is kind of like the golden rule of treating others the way you’d wanna be treated, except reversed and inside out: treat yourself how you treat others and then treat others how you treat yourself. If you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t be able to take care of others. However if you choose to be selfish for small and purposefully good intentions, the outcome of how you treat others will show tremendously better.

So what is my 2017 “resolution”, if you will? To love myself and to grow. I triple dog dare you all to do the same. As always, never change, but learn to grow. Learn to accept the big changes in your life for what they are, and decide how you’re gonna see the good side of them. Understand that the big leaps usually mean rough patches which sometimes mean bad days and the hardest part about all of that is understanding that all of it is totally, completely, 100% normal, and you’re gonna turn out just fine. Have a rough week? get some good sleep and work ahead. Not feeling yourself? Surround yourself with friends that make you smile and love ya lots. Miss your mom? Call your mom. (slowly learning there are some things ONLY moms can fix.) (And sometimes you have to FaceTime them at 6am from your dorm bed to show them your bronchitis infected throat. and they’re okay with it. because they’re moms and super-humans.) Do things that make your heart sing and find more things that make your heart sing and do those things too. Pet dogs occasionally if you can too, unless you’re allergic, then that is so so sad but there are cute pictures and videos of dogs ALL over the inter web to make your heart smile as well. Change your sheets, brush your hair, hug your best friends, hug yourself. Let’s all do some stuff to make ourselves happy, and then do some stuff to make our people happy. Because imagine if we all did that. That would be one gosh dang happy world, and one gosh dang happy year.

Here’s to 2017, may it be the happiest + most selfishly selfless one yet.

Love + hugs, xoxo, Ally

Hey friends! I am going to work on a few more posts to put up later this week but for now I thought I would just update you on life!

Well, I have officially survived my first semester of college. Not sure if survived is the best choice of the word, but it is over and quite honestly I am thrilled to begin a new semester filled with new classes, but this time not having to figure out the whole meeting people thing because I have already been blessed with quite a few fun friends to hang around that I already miss so much!!!! I never thought I would say it, but I got home Thursday night, and I already miss Kansas. Although it is super nice to be back in my own room and be able to make my own breakfast (dining hall eggs I am more than over…), it will for sure be a long month without some of my friends that live in other states. Honestly, it was less than 72 hours that I saw Rachel and it was already too long for me.

After dropping off my roomate at a halfway point between us (miss you maddie) my dad and I finished off the drive home late Thursday night and I’d be lying if I said my first stop wasn’t a bath. My mom had just got back from some last minute Christmas shopping and caught me just in time to let me use this and oh my it is the best thing ever! Crabtree&Evelyn has for sure become one of those things that I will never admit to but I am turning into my mother with in terms of how much I adore it. It has always been her go-to spot for gifts for her coworkers and as I am getting older I 100% agree!

I just also designed some bloggy Christmas cards of my own to send out to readers to thank them for stickin with me and joining in on the fun! I have a contact form below I will keep open until Thursday night if you would like one as well!!!

Well that’s about it for the quick wrap up! I am off today to finish up my Christmas crafting and maybe whip up a batch or two of my infamous “cheerio treats”…thanks again for that one mom…check back on the blog later this week for a surprise dealing with those delicious treats…maybe even a recipe who knows…

Stay warm and finish those finals strong to all my pals still pushing through those last days of school! Until next time!

xoxo, “do you think Santa does round trips to NYC and back at a discounted rate?” Ally